ASCENSION SUNDAY
Year B : 20 May 2012

Today’s gospel reading, which follows on from that of last Sunday, comes from St John’s account of the farewell of Jesus to his disciples before they go out to Gethsemane. Jesus asks them (and us) to remain in his love by allowing his words to remain in us. In other words, to keep his commandment we must share his way of thinking. Since all of us understand love in our own way, unless we have the mind of Christ we will get nowhere. He tells us that ‘my commandment’/ ‘my words’ are “Love one another as I have loved you.” This is the commandment of the ‘new and eternal covenant’, to love unselfishly, to love selflessly. His love for the disciples had already been symbolised when he got down and washed their feet. Now he makes clear what to ‘love as I have loved you’ means, that greater love which leads a man ‘to lay down his life for his friends’. His love for his disciples is without limit, even though they still do not understand, even though one of them will betray him and one will deny him. He does so because the Father loves him and he ‘remains in the Father’s love’.

His reason for telling us all this is “that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” ‘Complete’ must mean something like ‘overflowing with joy’. Such joy was promised in the Old Testament: “I create Jerusalem to be a delight. I will take delight in Jerusalem and rejoice in my people” [Isaiah 65,19]. “Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, daughter Jerusalem. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will show you his love once more; he will exult over you with loud singing” [Zephaniah 3,15]. It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that joy is not always the same thing as happiness, because happiness tends to come and go in human experience, while real joy is deeper and lasting and can remain even in difficult circumstances.

As a result of sharing in the mind of Christ, their [and our] relationship with him has changed. The disciples are not servants or slaves. Servants depend on their master’s whim. Rather they are ‘followers’, ‘disciples’, men and women in the process of learning. They are to be friends, intimate and esteemed, and loved without limit. Jesus has chosen these disciples as friends and sends them out. To tell the result of their mission he goes back to the image of the vine: they will bear fruit that will last. Because they have been chosen and sent out as friends by Jesus to bear fruit, they will turn to the Father and he will hear them. The reading ends with Jesus repeating his commandment which is at the centre of it all: “Love one another.” Nowhere does he specify what fruits should be aimed for, but they will come and they will last, because they result from the lives of people in touch with the mind of Christ.